Baltimore Ramblings

I was really excited about moving to Baltimore. Well, excited and terrified. For the first month that we lived here I was scared to leave our apartment by myself. G had to go to his mom's for a weekend and he was afraid to leave me alone. But other than that, it was fun to be in a big city. Plus we started seeing the nice neighborhoods like Fells Point and Federal Hill and I fell in love with the quirkiness that the city has to offer.

I guess that lasted for about a year.

Three years after we moved here I have a very different opinion on this place where we live. There's a level of apathy that I can't begin to describe. It starts with the local government and runs through a lot of the citizens. The segregation here is persistent and blind to the atrocities that many of our lower socioeconomic class neighbors are enduring on a daily basis.

In the 3 years that I have been here, I have worked in the public schools, with HIV/AIDS patients, IV drug abusers, and with victims of domestic violence, as well as many other groups of impoverished, uneducated, and marginalized people. Sometimes my friends will ask me if Baltimore is really like The Wire and I always say yes.

But really, it's worse. Trust me.